Imagine a tiny village set amid the Italian hills, 650 meters above sea level, hidden off the beaten track, but only minutes from Lake Iseo and the Franciacorta wine region.

Imagine a cozy place, where hosts Michele and Silvia warmly welcome you like a long lost friend, taking the time to explain to you their food, cuisine and general philosophy about life. Here you are not rushed, and you completely understand the true meaning of conviviality.

Imagine a wine list with a wide choice of local wines, carefully selected by Silvia from small wine producers. The wines are mostly only found in Italy and are offered at amazing prices.

Imagine an impressive cheese selection, from the area, but also from the rest of Italy and France. Michele knows each producer personally (you will find all their details on the menu). He tastes and picks each cheese as he knows well that each one is different and standardization has nothing to do with farmers production.

Imagine a delicious, never banal, local and traditional cuisine, from lakes, mountains and the planes, which have rescued lost and forgotten flavours. A cuisine where you can really taste the terroir, its peculiarities and singularities with a hint of modernization and personalitation.

Malfatti with Bagoss Cheese

Grilled Pigeon with Polenta

Freshwater Fish Fritto Misto

Imagine a restaurant where the industrialization of food (homogeneous, un-seasonal, repeatable) is blessedly absent here and all ingredients come from small farmers, where ZeroMiles food is a reality, where you have producers details of all ingredients on the menu if you want to go and buy directly, or simply know what you are eating. A restaurant which serves only meat from free ranged animals, who had a decent life.

Stop imaging as this place exists! Trattoria La Madia, near Brescia in Northern Italy, is a haven for foodies with a conscience.

And you, do you think eating is an agricultural act?

Do you think your food choices impact on agriculture, on how it is sustainable and ecological?

Do you eat responsibly?

Do you think at yourself as a consumer or a co-producer?

Check out this interesting piece on Eco Literacy by Wendell Berry and we would love to hear your opinion on this topic.

5 Responses to “Eating responsibly and deliciously at Trattoria La Madia in Northern Italy- Eating is an Agricultural Act”

I know Trattorial la Madia well. It is to me a place where to find myself part of a bigger village.
Michele Valotti selects personally the ingredients he chooses for his cuisine. He knows how the animals were fed and how they were bred. He knows the face of the producers and their stories and how food, people and culture makes sense only when blended together.
The food is conceived beyond its taste, its presentation and goes deeply and tells amazing stories to whom has the courtesy to open their heart and listen.

The way Michele, Silvia and their staff are working should be as a model for starred or hatted restaurants. Unfortunately you can hardly find correspondence between respect for peasants’ work and restaurants’ renown. Here in Brione, at Michele & Silvia’s House, you enter the respect for others’ job, a cultural trip, an imaginative tour through the best and the most unknown Italy. Restaurants should know the origin of their food: only this way they can be trusted about the genuinity of their food. But, we can easily see that they are supplied by either door to door sellers or by organized food chain. Readers urgently call for a guide where you can eat when knowing the name of producers of raw materials: this way most of starred and hatted restaurants would be swept away… And La Madia will be finally awarded among the best stops in Italy…